Pages

Sunday, 30 November 2014

^Radiator and wall tiles in the entrance corridor of the Villa Muller, Prague, 2005, photo by Adam Nathaniel Furman

Exclusively for Saturated Space,Charles Holland of Ordinary Architecture explores Adolf Loos' use of colour in relation
to his notions of material integrity and of his spatial technique of the
Raumplan.

Please either use the embedded reader below or click HEREto read the text.

Sunday, 23 November 2014

by Shumon BasarI want to invent this colour. Lord knows all and he knows I'm trying.
Ideally it would *just* happen, but not just like *Just Jared*. You see, I
dreamt a dream in which I manage to index every colour I've ever seen --
acknowledged and not -- and from this archive that, as far as humans know, does
not exist in time and in space, I concoct a single colour. It remains unnamed.
Partly because I shun the pseudo poetics of 'Evening Lilac Shade' or 'Jam
Surprise,' affronts to colour’s innate gaiety. And do not get me started on
their numeric counterparts. Faceless strings of digits the spawn of
industrialization. Soon comes the day, once again, when we name people, your
children of the future, after strings of numbers. The ones their skin most
closely resembles. I want to invent a colour that started in that dream -- and
when you see it you will struggle to describe it too. I am not so immodest as
to want to invent a new way of seeing. I leave that to the boys and girls of
Silicon Valley and Seoul. I am writing to my old schoolteacher, Ms. Elceedee, a
dowager now dwindling into senescence, who taunted me and told me I'd amount to
nothing on this earth. I am writing to tell her about the colour I plan on
inventing, most magnificent, beyond the limited scope of her punitive
imagination, and that of my own heart's sight. The hues will erupt in unison.
Swans will bow. Mountains blush. Search engines will wither. Prisoners will
find peace. The only oversight in this otherwise most formidable plan is not
knowing its fucking name. A name that people -- cultured, svelte, caring, fans
of yoga -- can drop into their polite dinner conversations in and around the
topics of sky, coats, skin, sex, simulations and vacation. I'm going to invent
this amazing fucking colour bitch -- and by bitch I do not mean you, or any
woman. I apologize, but, I just heard the phrase on a YouTube video that's been
trending rather well of late. The sound was so crisp. It boomed from this TV,
the size of a small state or large child, which, when switched on by retina eye
recognition + NSA verification, the screen lit up in an array of colours only
ever cited by the lucky few who venture North to the Aurora Borealis. That impossibly
smooth landscape of vaporous colour bleeding seamlessly into each other.
Perfect gradients. Cries and whispers. This colour, which cannot remain so
doggedly without moniker forever, dear Lord, this colour is the one I want to
invent.

Shumon Basar is a writer
currently working on a book with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist
entitledThe Age of
Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present,which will be published by Penguin in
March 2015.

Sunday, 16 November 2014

^Parents Magazine, July 1970Exclusively for Saturated Space, Alexandra Lange explores the evolution of American children's colour-space in the 20th Century."Recent research on the history of children and color shows that the gender binary (blue is for boys, pink is for girls) is of postwar vintage. Color has been an indicator, in the pint-sized realm, of so many other things. Age, separating the wardrobe of white-dressed infants from the breeched in colored rompers or knickers. Interests, manifested in wallpapers with transportation scenes or Western stampedes. Program, with bright colors in the playroom and soothing hues in the bedroom. Complexion, red for brunettes and blue for blondes. This essay explores a few of those choices, which overlap and interweave rather than advancing toward a color-coded future."

Please either use the embedded reader below or click HEREto read the text.

N.B the following note from the author:

"As my title suggests, the texts and images I examined seem to mean, by and large, "white children" when they say children. When talking about children and color, particularly in reference to complexion and appropriate historical themes, I expect there were different recommendations for non-white children historically, and indeed separate merchandising and advertising histories in the early 20th century. I did not find good references to such material in this first pass at the topic, but acknowledge the omission and plan to research further."

Monday, 3 November 2014

Exclusively for Saturated Space, Tim Maughan explores through prose the effect that digital consumption and the 'instagrammed' mediation of reality has on the timbre of our vision.

"Originally conceived by imagining what the world might look like if we could apply Instagram style colour filters to reality, 'Your gaze, brought to you by our sponsors' ended up being an exploration of how digital palettes alienate us from the true colours of reality, how the male gaze shades virtual worlds, and how social media has made us all the content between advertisements."

Please either use the embedded reader below or click HEREto read the text.